ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a broad picture of the 2,350 participants in American Dream Demonstration (ADD). ADD participants were not generally among the "poorest of the poor", nor were they among the "richest of the poor". People who opened an Individual Development Accounts (IDA) but who later closed it without making a matched withdrawal are still counted as participants. In ADD, program staff recorded participant characteristics in Management Information System for Individual Development Accounts (MIS IDA) at the time of enrollment. After that, they sometimes updated characteristics that could change through time, for example, marital status, number of children, employment status, or income. Household composition might matter for IDA saving because, although IDAs are Individual Development Accounts, saving and asset accumulation usually results from cooperative efforts among all household members. Both education and employment status reflect human capital, that is, accumulated training and experience that is available to use for production in the market and in the household.
